Budget will push up patient costs: doctors' groups

The Australian Medical Association of Queensland (AMAQ) says the federal budget will hurt patients in the hip pocket.

Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan last night delivered his sixth budget, with the baby bonus abolished and a program of cuts to bring the budget back to surplus in four years' time.

The net medical expenses tax offset is being phased out and the Medicare safety net threshold will increase from $1,200 to $2,000 from 2015.

AMAQ president Dr Alex Markwell says patients will pay more.

"The freeze on indexation of Medicare benefits schedule will mean that patients will end up paying more for their health, which is a great concern for the Australian Medical Association," she said.

"We don't want patients to have a greater out-of-pocket expenses and this budget move certainly does look that patients will be affected significantly."

Dr Markwell says there is also a delay in the rebate on fees for seeing a doctor.

"There doesn't appear to be discrimination when it comes to this freeze," she said.

"We know that veterans will also be affected and that the safety net threshold will be increased, so overall this will see Australians paying more out of pocket to have their health care."

Regional doctors

Meanwhile, the Rural Doctors Association (RDA) says it is disappointing to see no change to the classification scheme for regional doctors in the budget.

RDA national president Dr Sheilagh Cronin says the scheme has incentives for doctors to move to regional areas, but it does not make enough distinction between remote areas like Mount Isa and coastal cities like Cairns.

She says the RDA will continue to lobby for change because it would help to get more GPs in remote areas.

"The Minister has just received an updated report on the classification system so we are expecting the Government to actually make some modifications," she said.

"We don't want it scrapped but we think it does need to be modified so that it more truly reflects added problems in getting doctors to go to places such as Mount Isa or Kalgoorlie."

Dr Cronin also says the freeze on the Medicare rebate until July next year could lead to less bulk-billing clinics in regional areas.

"You might have 10 or 20 doctors [in a practice that] may be a financially supported by having in-house pathology and radiology and those practices largely don't exist in rural areas," she said.

"The rural practices are much smaller that means that it's much harder to make them financially viable."